


wild roses

by softshocks



Series: hearts like ours [1]
Category: Bayonetta (Video Games)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, childhood friends to awkward teenage best friends to adults that don't talk about what they feel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:02:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27617353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softshocks/pseuds/softshocks
Summary: “Who’s that?” Jeanne asks Maman, tugging at her sleeve. “Can I talk to her?”“You mustn't, Jeanne,” Maman sternly tells her. “You are forbidden to befriend her, do you understand?”Of course, Jeanne doesn’t care. She’s never been known to follow the rules and that isn’t about to change now.
Relationships: Cereza/Jeanne (Bayonetta)
Series: hearts like ours [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2019170
Comments: 10
Kudos: 35





	wild roses

**Author's Note:**

> Sort of like a prequel to silver line (i’ll save you every time); not necessary to read it but i wanted to expand on a few scenes on their childhood mentioned in the fic! 
> 
> For kelly!

The girl arrives and it changes everything. 

Now, Jeanne isn’t the only girl in the clan. She’d overheard Maman saying she’s worried Jeanne would get jealous of the attention, even if the attention surrounding the little girl had been negative. 

She couldn’t have been more wrong.

“Who’s that?” Jeanne asks Maman, tugging at her sleeve. “Can I talk to her?” 

“You mustn't, Jeanne,” Maman sternly tells her. “You are _forbidden_ to befriend her, do you understand?” 

Of course, Jeanne doesn’t care. She’s never been known to follow the rules and that isn’t about to change now. When everyone sleeps, Jeanne sneaks out of her room to the dungeons where she’d found out they’re keeping Elder Rosa and the young girl. 

The drip of the water against the stone is her only accompaniment aside from Charles when she arrives, and Jeanne’s eyes adjust in the dark to see the girl, sitting on the pavement, a tiny ragdoll in her hand. 

When the girl sees her approaching, she hides behind the post, so Jeanne takes it as an opportunity to introduce herself. “Hello, I’m Jeanne.” 

After a few moments, the girl peeks from behind the stone wall. “I’m not supposed to talk to strangers…” 

Jeanne shrugs, extending her hand. Her lessons on etiquette said that a curtsy is the best way to say hello, but Jeanne hated those anyway. “Then I’ll be your friend. What’s your name?” 

“It’s…” she looks around, then finally at Jeanne. “Cereza.” 

“Like the cherry? Very nice,” she notices Cereza looking at Charles, and then looking at her own doll. It’s a bit mangled and dirty, but she holds on to it like a lifeline. “I have one too. His name is Charles.” 

“This is Cheshire,” Cereza laughs for the first time when they put the dolls together. Then it’s easy, from there. Jeanne sits on the cold, damp ground and doesn’t care if her dress is dirtied. 

“Princess,” someone speaks, walking over to them. Jeanne looks up to find Elder Rosa, with chains attached to her ankles. “You mustn’t be here.” 

“Mummy!” Cereza greets, embracing the elder’s leg. “I made a friend. This is Jeanne.” 

Elder Rosa gives Cereza a warm, motherly smile Jeanne has never seen from her own. 

“I’m sorry, Elder,” she says, bowing. “I was interested to see our new visitor.” 

Elder Rosa clucks her tongue, but she smiles when she turns to Jeanne. “Your Maman will disapprove.”

“I don’t care.” 

The woman shakes her head with fondness. “Hard-headed as always, dear Jeanne. Be careful, alright?” 

Jeanne nods, then shows Charles to Cereza to pick up from where they’d left off. 

-

“Princess, you must understand why the impure one cannot undergo formal schooling with the rest of the Umbra witches!”

Jeanne slams her fist against the table, her infamous temper flaring. “No, I do not. The rules of the Elders are outdated. She has just as much potential power as the daughter of Elder Rosa and a Lumen sage. To have her on our side will work in our favor.”

“But tradition—”

“ _Fuck_ tradition!” 

Jeanne gets sent to her room, locked in it for the next seven days. It’s been happening a lot the moment she hit her teenage years, consequently learning a few curse words from other witches.

She lies down on her massive bed, completely and utterly bored she could be sent into inferno for it, so she summons a circle and sends over a funny drawing of the Elder that scolded her to Cereza, who shows it to her a few days later. 

-

There is a secret passageway that lets her observe court meetings in the shadows, and Jeanne hears everything. 

“Maybe we can consider teaching her.”

“No. The prophecy said she would be the most powerful being. We cannot harness that.”

“What if we can?” 

_“Enough!_ ” Her mother cuts through the argument. “We cannot teach her. To allow someone of Lumen blood to learn… that is against everything we stand for.” 

She thinks of Cereza - tall, scrawny, a little bit clumsy. She hates how ridiculous she thinks it is, especially now that her growth spurt hit her first before Jeanne. How can people be afraid of _her_? 

Jeanne flees to the great library on the cold day of Cereza’s birthday and takes all the books she had read in her early years at the Umbran academy and wraps them neatly along with other books she’d purchased for her. She drops it in front of an unassuming Cereza, who reads a book Jeanne had loaned for her. 

“Happy birthday,” she says, smiling, even if her cheeks are freezing. Cereza looks so surprised, as if she is never used to Jeanne buying her presents every year. “Quick, open it!” 

She does, and Cereza stares at it. “Jeanne…” 

“I reckon you wouldn’t appreciate it if I tried to replace Cheshire again, so—” 

She’s enveloped in a hug and Cereza whispers her gratitude into her shoulder.

“You deserve it more than anyone in this clan. I promised I’d teach you everything I know,” Jeanne tells her, remembering all the times she’d seen Cereza watching other Umbra witches train. She knows, given the opportunity, Cereza can overpower all of the people born into the privilege of pure Umbran blood - including herself, the princess. “We start training tomorrow, right here.” 

-

“Get up,” Jeanne says, looking down at Cereza. Her long hair sticks to her forehead and her cheeks are red. She looks ridiculously pretty, even in her beat-up state. “Again.”

“Jeanne, give me a moment to breathe.”

She counts for three seconds. “That’s enough. Get up.” 

Cereza does and they do their shifting skills until Cereza gets all her chosen beasts correctly. 

-

Jeanne treats her wounds in her own quarters, incredibly proud of her. “Butterfly, I see.” 

Cereza huffs a little laugh, not dulled even by the wound on her cheek and the blood that had dried on her chin. “Too ambitious?” 

“No, it’s what you deserve. You trained so well,” she says, dabbing the gash on Cereza’s arm gingerly. “You made me so proud.” 

Cereza holds her hand, stopping the movements of it. “I had the best teacher. I hope you know that. You needn’t have staked your life for my sake, but… it’s appreciated. I appreciate everything you do for me.” 

There’s a moment where Jeanne wants to kiss her, to act on what she’d been feeling all these years. Madama Styx, at the back of her mind, whispers for her to do it, that she approves.

When the tension gets too thick, Jeanne looks away, daunted. What if Cereza didn’t feel the same? She’s the only one she could ever trust in this blasted clan and then she ruins it because Jeanne experiences normal teenage human emotions. 

She says nothing, the silence almost unbearable, and she cleans her wounds as Cereza brushes it off to recount her ceremony with the mistress of Atrocity.

-

The ball celebrated in her honor of making her pact with Madama Styx is ditched for the beach. Jeanne hated those stiff banquets, and she sheds her gown for more casual wear. Away from the celebration that would earn her a few slaps from her mother, she and Cereza shift into their beasts to run to the coast, where no one can find them.

She doesn’t know at which point Cereza became a _woman_ , but here she is, standing in front of her, naked and running into the water. 

Jeanne looks away, her blush spreading to her neck. Her body… she doesn’t know why she hates being naked when she summons, thus the red apparel to hide the white.

“Come on, the water is good!” Cereza calls out. The moon watches over them. 

_Oh,_ Jeanne is so taken with her it should be a crime.

She doesn’t shed her clothing, and Cereza doesn’t complain, but they splash in the water.

This was better than being in the stiff dress, and minding her manners in front of the elders. Everything in this world is boring without Cereza, she’d come to find. 

“I wish this would last forever,” Cereza says, lying down on the sand beside her, now fully clothed but still damp, like Jeanne. Jeanne can’t look at her without wanting to kiss her, so she doesn’t. She looks up at the night sky instead, the stars like holes on a dark blue sheet. “I feel like nothing can hurt us here.” 

Jeanne can’t help but feel the same. She reaches out and holds Cereza’s hand. It’s moments like this that remind her it’s really them against the world. 

-

Madama Styx had told her early on that Cereza would hold the Left Eye of Darkness. Still, she puts on a fight for the sake of saving face. She taught Cereza so many of the things she knows - this won’t be an easy fight. They know each other too well. 

Still, Cereza wins, as the prophecy said.

“Sorry for kicking your sorry behind,” Cereza teases, catching up to Jeanne. She’s freer, now, and can walk the grounds now that she is, quite literally, the most powerful Umbra witch. It’s not complete acceptance, but they’re working towards that. 

“My pride is bruised, do not speak to me,” she jokes back. “I owe you a plushie, no? Aren’t you too old for that?”

“Aren’t you too old to have your favorite blanket?” 

Jeanne scoffs. “Why would you bring my favorite blanket into this? You know I have problems sleeping.” 

Cereza leans into her, kissing her cheek. It’s something she tries to get used to, but the blush still rushes to her cheek. Her body always betrays her when it comes to Cereza’s affections, even now, at twenty-four. “Forgive me.”

She only rolls her eyes, but she leans in closer to her anyway. She’s immensely proud of Cereza, and Jeanne doesn’t have to say it out loud for her to know. From the moment Cereza had picked up the tomes she’d loaned and bought, Jeanne had known she would be the most powerful witch among them. 

She had never doubted that, not even a little bit.

-

The war takes so much from all of them, and in the midst of it, Jeanne finds herself crowned as the leader of the Umbra Witches. 

After a particularly harrowing session planning their defense against the treacherous Lumen Sages who want Cereza to recreate the universe and tip the scale towards them, Jeanne sits on the throne, the heaviness of her duty weighing on her shoulders tonight more than ever.

When everyone leaves, Cereza stays, as she always does. For all her teasing and jokes to fluster Jeanne, she only sits close to her, waiting. “You know,” Jeanne says, sighing. “When I wanted to be the leader, I did not foresee it to be this way.” 

Her mother, cold as she was, did not deserve to pass the way she did - at the hands of a Lumen Sage who had killed her in front of Jeanne.

“I wanted to change things, during prosperous times,” she pinches the bridge of her nose. The reason she had wanted to change things stood right in front of her: an outcast, almost prevented from her full potential, thought of as unclean. She wanted that. “Not deal with our sisters being taken away and murdered.” 

Tears shed, unbidden, and in this lonely throne room Cereza says nothing, only wipes them away tirelessly as she always had. 

-

“Cereza, we have to go,” Jeanne insists, her heart pounding. They’ve lost so many of their sisters already. If it ends up with the two of them left, Jeanne would be heartbroken but not surprised. 

Cereza sits on the ground, cradling a now-dead Rosa in her arms, weeping over her mother’s body. 

Jeanne weighs her options, and then Fortitudo breaks through the roof of the tower, the debris falling around. She summons a shield to protect them. 

Then Jeanne makes her decision. “Cereza,” she says, tears in her eyes. This time, Cereza looks back at her, looking utterly miserable and defeated. “I’m so sorry.” 

Then she tampers with her watch, dislodging the gem. 

Jeanne knows what she’s getting herself into. Centuries of loneliness. Cereza, the only person she has ever trusted and loved, asleep. 

She’s not sure if they’re ever going to see each other again. But she hopes, clings to the remaining hope she has that one day, they’ll meet, and things will be better. Maybe she’ll tell Cereza how she feels. Maybe she’ll marry her. Maybe they’ll build a clan from nothing together. 

For now, Jeanne has to protect her. The light is blinding, but Jeanne keeps her eyes open. Her rapier forces itself into the silver and the ruby. 

Then Cereza is gone, except for the gem where she is sealed in safely. 

“The Left Eye, our treasured Left Eye,” her heart almost caves in itself. The Left Eye and Cereza were one, as prophecy has predicted. “Will never fall into the hands of another!”

Jeanne takes the gem and the lipstick in Rosa’s hand, and runs, and runs, and runs.


End file.
